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March 26, 2007
Drug-taking troops provoke UK army crisis
Lorna Martin in Sunday's Observer reports that:
Obviously, throwing out so many troops causes problems. There are, as Prof. David Nutt puts it, "very serious question[s] of what [the army is] trying to do here. Are they saying drugs are illegal, so if you take them you're not fit to be a soldier? Or are they saying using cocaine or cannabis is interfering with your ability to do your job? If it's the latter, then we need to see the evidence for that."
There are also issues around other - potentially very problematic - consequences of drug testing soldiers. To quote Nutt again, "[o]ne of the really big problems is that cannabis lasts in the body for much longer, so people using a class C drug are much more likely to be caught than people using more dangerous drugs like crack or heroin." Especially given the availability of opiates in Afghanistan (and the problems this caused for the earlier Soviet intervention in the state), it would be very unfortunate if drug tests gave soldiers an incentive to use opiates instead of cannabis.
Posted by jon_mendel at 05:00 PM | TrackBack
March 23, 2007
Baghdad - Mapping the Violence
Last week, I was talking with some of the people studying the 'war on terror' at Durham. One response to reports of sectarian violence in Iraq was to note how maps of the country would soon be coloured in with nice, distinct areas for the different ethnic groups.
Bang on time, the BBC's Iraq Week has taken this somewhat further: providing an animated map of Baghdad which divides the city into nice, tidy sectarian areas. I'd argue that, at times like this, there's more need than ever for complex and complicating analyses to disrupt all these clear divisions - and to emphasise that, horrible though they are, attempts to ethnically cleanse parts of Iraq have not been altogether 'successful'.
It's maps like this that give geographers a bad name.
Posted by jon_mendel at 01:45 AM | TrackBack
March 16, 2007
Gen. Pace - homosexual acts are immoral
Anyway, as far as international politics goes, the latest thing to catch my attention has been Gen. Pace's claim that "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts". On the one hand, this position is clearly offensive - I'd agree with the Human Rights Campaign that Pace's statement is a "slap in the face" for the gay men and women serving the US (and for the gay British and international troops fighting alongside US forces).
However, there's also something a little quaint about Pace's argument - the idea that, after the US (and UK) have instigated the unnecessary and horribly bloody violence in Iraq, Pace's 'traditional' values remain so strong and so narrow that he feels obliged to talk about the immorality of 'homosexual acts' The fact that he insists on making this statement - despite the fact that the US is struggling to recruit enough troops, so now does not seem like the ideal time to discourage gay men and women from joining and serving - only adds to this effect.
Maybe this is a (conscious or unconscious) displacement strategy on behalf of the General - don't think about the bloody failures of US-led policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, think about gay sex instead! Or maybe Pace really believes that - for all the unnecessary deaths associated with US foreign and military policy - gay sex is a much more pressing moral issue to discuss. Either way, there's something almost touching, almost nostalgic, about this ridiculously narrow focus...
Posted by jon_mendel at 01:50 PM | TrackBack
March 07, 2007
RIP Baudrillard
Working late and listening to the radio, I've just heard that Jean Baudrillard has died, aged 77. At a time when Baudrillard's analyses of how "Virtuality retranscribes everything in its space [and] human ends vanish into thin air in virtuality" are more significant than ever, Baudrillard's own 'end' has taken place. However, Baudrillard will - at least virtually - live on through the reverberations of his work: his own end will not be final, and will vanish into and spread ever-further through the thin air of virtuality.
As a way of remembering the political significance of Baudrillard's work, and remembering him, I'll end by quoting from his book on Simulacra and Simulation (p163). His radical attacks on 'the system' are still striking today, and their meanings have multiplied in recent years. For Baudrillard:
The more hegemonic the system, the more imagination is struck by the smallest of its reversals. The challenge, even infinitesimal, is the image of a chain failure...If being a nihilist is carrying to the unbearable limit of hegemonic systems this radical trait of derision and of violence, then I am a terrorist and nihilist in theory as others are with their weapons. Theoretical violence, not truth, is the only resource left us.
But such a sentiment is utopian. Because it would be beautiful to be a nihilist, if there were still a radicality - as it would be nice to be a terrorist, if death, including that of the terrorist, still had meaning.
It's still too soon to tell whether Baudrillard's work, life and death have been able to have meaning - and, if so, what meanings they will take on. However, it would be nice if Baudrillard's intellectual terrorism is able to achieve some kind of meaning in and against 'the system'.
